Beijing, 2019-18: Planning Hall, Railway Museum

City Planning Exhibition Hall
Last Thursday was Korea's Memorial Day, and many schools, including mine, added a sandwich day on Friday, so I headed off to visit TB in BJ Wednesday evening. I was treated to a drizzly Thursday morning so I visited some nice inside spots, starting with the City Planning Exhibition Hall, very near Qianmen sta on Beijing's cheap and efficient subway system. A good way to get an overview of the city, since its key feature is a large model of the city. (Seoul has a better one, I think, in the City Museum, which I blogged about here: http://seoulpatch.blogspot.com/2018/09/lets-flock-to-seoul-without-any.html). But it's pretty good.


There is also a fair number of explanatory exhibits, including models of some architectural features common in Beijing, a model of the subway tunneling machine at 1:16 scale, and a drafting table:


Two caveats: some bits need repair, and the glass viewing area surrounding it have photos beneath rather than the model. Still it is vast, well done with lots of English and worth visiting, especially since it's free.


China Railway Museum
As I made the short trip to the Hall, I passed the Railway Museum and since it was still drizzling, I figured, Why not? It was 20 RMB. Well, most small labels on items had a bit of English, it had three floors of exhibits, including a simulation of a fast train ride (10 Y extra). How close is it to the Planning Hall? This first shot shows the Railway Museum from inside the Hall. Coming from the station, you encounter the Railway Museum before you encounter the Planning Hall.


After a beautiful entry foyer, you see the "Rocket of China".


For the most part, this museum appeals to small boys who love trains and heavy machinery, but its purpose is to extoll the industrial power and modernization drive of the Communist Party. It has bits and pieces of the European engineering of the early days of Chinese rail, but Chairman Mao has a central role.


There are three floors of this kind of thing, though less and less steam-driven and more and more electrical:


Behind the pantograph in the last photo, you can see the high-speed train simulator. Here's what it looked like on the inside:


Finally, I like to find a Korean connection, and here are some medals won by railway employees during the Korean War (of course, they were on the other side):


I have headed this post (and the ones to come) with "Beijing, 2019-18", because some of the following posts about this trip will also delve into my longer trip last year. After making an initial highlight video post (here), I got distracted and did zero follow-up. That's about to change.